Trip exposes Tigers to talent, TV audience

The Pacific men's basketball team will spend Thanks-giving near the happiest place on Earth, but their mood will be determined by how well they play in the DirecTV Classic.

Jagdip Dhillon

The Pacific men's basketball team will spend Thanks-giving near the happiest place on Earth, but their mood will be determined by how well they play in the DirecTV Classic.

The eight-team tournament at the Anaheim Convention Center will start with the Tigers (1-2) facing perennial NCAA Tournament participant Xavier (3-0) at 11 a.m. today on ESPNU. The tournament, featuring Cal, Saint Mary's, Georgia Tech, Rice and Drexel, will air on ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.com.

After facing fourth-year coach Chris Mack's Musketeers, coach Bob Thomason's Tigers will play Friday before spending Saturday at Disneyland and playing their final game on Sunday.

"We want to really enjoy this trip and build our camaraderie and part of that is competing and faring well," Thomason said. "I love the chance to play really good teams on a neutral court."

It will be a special weekend for senior point guard Lorenzo McCloud, who's from Compton and will have family and friends on hand at each of Pacific's three games.

"It'll be fun for me just to being going home," McCloud said. "It's great to be playing on national TV, especially on Thanksgiving and we need to go in with the right mindset to get past our losses."

Xavier has made the Sweet 16 in four of the past five seasons and has made seven consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament out of the Atlantic-10 Conference. The Musketeers are led by sophomore point guard Dee Davis, who leads the team in scoring (15.3 points per game) and is second in assists (6.7), but there are four other scorers averaging in double-figures, including seniors Travis Taylor (14.3 ppg), Jeff Robinson (13.3 ppg) and Brad Redford (10 ppg).

"They're an elite program, one of the top 30 in the country," Thomason said. "They're athletic, have good shooters, have a confidence about them that comes with being a winning program."

The Tigers are looking to find that confidence after two tough losses in the final minute last Friday at Fresno State and Monday against Oral Roberts. Thomason stressed the mental mistakes he saw in the losses: lobbed passes against pressure defense, not boxing out to rebound, and missed free throws, among them.

"I feel we're ready for this," senior guard Rodrigo de Souza said. "We need to bring our A game and that means we need to share the ball, play tough and focus on details."

Depending on how the bracket breaks, the Tigers could be matched up against and future West Coast Conference foe Saint Mary's this weekend. The Gaels and Tigers are slated to play on Dec. 18 in Moraga.

"That's a coup for our league, getting Pacific to come into our league," Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett said in a conference call last week. "I'm very familiar with their program and coach Thomason is a great coach. I've known him for 15, 20 years and seen his team and they execute offense about as well as any team in the country."